


night terrors

by 49percentchanceofbees



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Fire Emblem: Three Houses Blue Lions Route, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Blue Lions Route Spoilers, Gen, Nightmares, Post-Timeskip | War Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-25
Updated: 2019-10-25
Packaged: 2021-01-02 03:37:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21154982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/49percentchanceofbees/pseuds/49percentchanceofbees
Summary: Dimitri looked down at the pink swirls in the basin. “No. There is no rest for me, even in the grave.”One night, a commotion breaks out in what was once the dormitory for the Officer's Academy's noble students.





	night terrors

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this pretty quickly, so be gentle, please. (I haven't even finished the game yet, oops.)

Up and running before he was even awake, or he would have been, if not for the bedclothes, which entangled him -- crashing to the floor -- screams filled the air like choking smog --

A door crashed open, a silhouette appearing in the faint light from beyond. “Goddess! Y -- Di -- Your Highness, are you …?”

The voice sounded vaguely familiar.  _ Why won’t they stop screaming? _

Hands on his shoulder; he pushed them off with the one hand he could get free, clawing at the skin, his nails long and filthy, like an animal’s.

“Ouch!”

“What’s going on?” The glint of moonlight on a blade. He redoubled his efforts; the sheets tore, blankets better-made.

“I don’t know! I think he’s having a fit! Ingrid, do something!”

“What do you expect me to do?” A panicked edge to the voice.

“Can you start by shutting that creature up?”

_ Oh. I’m the one screaming. _ He managed, with some difficulty, to stop.

“Felix -- ”

Fabric ripped, and he went free; he barrelled into the figure above him, knocking it to the floor.

“Sylvain!” Two voices on that one, and then one: “Your Highness, stop!”

Escape or stop to make sure the man on the floor stayed down? He brought a bare foot down hard on a hand trying to push its owner up, winning a cry of pain.

“Sylvain!” Just the woman’s voice this time.

“Give me your sword, Ingrid. I’m going to put that thing down before it hurts someone.”

“Definitely not!”

“I’m fine,” came strained, from the floor. “Get the professor …”

Two of them in the doorway, one armed: he’d better go out the window. He leapt onto the shelf below it.

“You go, Felix; I don’t trust you here with him.”

“Very well, though I can’t imagine what  _ he’s _ supposed to do about it.”

Only one in the doorway now, but she still had the sword. He fumbled at the window clasp, briefly stymied by the mechanism, not thinking at first to simply break it.

“Your Highness, please -- it’s us, you know us. You’re in the monastery, you’re safe …”

“Your Highness -- Dimitri -- you’ve got to calm down.  _ Please _ don’t jump out the window -- we’re on the second floor.”

He hesitated, something making it through the fog of panic and well-honed instinct -- the instinct to flee, to fight; the instinct that every dark room was a cell. But this particular dark room was more familiar than he’d realized.

The man on the floor sat up slowly, hands raised. “Dimitri? It’s me, it’s Sylvain. You -- I think you were having a nightmare -- ”

Footsteps pounded down the hall and shattered the scraps of comprehension he’d been gathering. He turned back to the window -- the man jumped up, grabbed him around the waist, and they both fell back flailing, hitting the bed, rolling off onto the floor together. The redhead tried to pin him down, but he was stronger, of course he was stronger. Sylvain hadn’t gone through what he had, tempered like steel. Sylvain?

“Dimitri!” That voice he would know anywhere, but he didn’t have time to listen to the dead right now … 

Sylvain was on the floor, nose bleeding; the sight of blood shocked him into stillness for a second as he stood over him, though the goddess only knew he ought to be well-accustomed to it by now. Two swords now, raised, one higher than the other -- between them a vision with unearthly hair and shining eyes, the goddess’s messenger here to take him to task for his sins, and he laughed, because it was about time.

“Dimitri.” Hands, gentle but firm, on his shoulders; he flinched to realize they were warm, and real. The professor was alive. Which meant the rest of it was real too -- which meant Sylvain --

After everything he’d done, he had worse things to feel guilty over than a bloody nose. He raised his head, met the professor’s eyes. He would make no attempt to excuse himself.

“Sylvain?” Ingrid said, lowering her sword. Had she actually intended to cut him down? He’d respect her more if she had.

Felix certainly had. He didn’t lower his sword, nor did he take his eyes from Dimitri. “This is what we get for allowing a beast into our home, I suppose. I’d say we could house it in the stables, but I fear it’d scare the horses.”

“I’m all right.” Sylvain’s voice thick with blood. “I’ve had worse. You do pack a punch, though, Your Highness.”

“Go wake Manuela,” the professor said.

“It’s all right, really. I wouldn’t want to interrupt her beauty sleep.” Sylvain climbed to his feet, wincing and holding his nose.

“Be sure to wash those scratches well. You don’t know where those claws have been.”

“Enough, Felix. Go to bed.” Ingrid, defending Dimitri. How misguided.

“Yeah, Felix, you need your beauty sleep too.” And Sylvain. Well, he always was a fool.

Felix raised his hands in surrender, but he had one final comment: “Don’t let this happen again, Professor.”

The professor didn’t answer, eyes on Dimitri, who realized as Ingrid lit a candle that he hadn’t worn a shirt to bed, or his eyepatch. He could feel all three onlookers cataloguing the maze of scars on his torso, the ruined hole in his face. Well, let them look. Perhaps it would help them get through their heads that he was nothing more than the blighted remains of the boy they had once known.

Sylvain turned away. “I’m going to go get cleaned up. Good night, everyone.”

Ingrid hesitated, looked after him. “Do you need anything, Professor?”

The professor shook his head. His hands were still on Dimitri’s shoulders. He started to guide him towards the bed, and Dimitri shook him off, going to look out the window. There was blood on his hands -- always, but right now it was literal.

The door closed behind Ingrid. Dimitri heard the professor moving around, pouring water into the room’s washbasin.

Felix was right. He always had been; he’d seen the seeds of this in Dimitri early. “I’ll find somewhere else to sleep.”

“You don’t have to.” With the professor’s calm voice, Dimitri couldn’t tell if he actually meant it.

“This room isn’t mine anymore. The boy who lived here is dead.”

The professor came up beside Dimitri, set the basin on the windowsill, and reached for Dimitri’s hand. He snatched it away. “I can still wash my own hands.”

_ They’ll never be clean. _

The pity in the professor’s eyes was far worse than anger or disgust. Dimitri hated him for it.

“Please, let me help you.” The professor wasn’t talking about just the hand-washing. He didn’t sound so impassive anymore.

“You can help me tear Edelgard to pieces. That’s all.” Dimitri lifted his hands out of the now-pink water, and the professor offered him a cloth. Once his hands were dry, Dimitri ran the damp fabric over his face.

“And then what?”

Dimitri let out a harsh laugh. “Then the dead will rest quietly.”

“And you?”

Dimitri looked down at the pink swirls in the basin. “No. There is no rest for me, even in the grave.”

“Dimitri …” The professor put a hand on Dimitri’s back. Tonight might have been the first time in years someone had touched Dimitri without trying to kill him. Before that … Dedue, perhaps, breaking him out of prison.  _ Only the dead can still stand me. _ After five years thinking otherwise, he often had trouble remembering that Byleth was alive.

“The others all call me ‘Your Highness,’” Dimitri said, gazing out the window. “But not you. You’ve realized I’m no prince these days, haven’t you?”

“That’s not it.”

No, he supposed not: the professor hadn’t used his title much before the war started, either. “Then what?”

Never one to elaborate, Byleth said only, “I’m not from Faerghus.”

“So your loyalties don’t lie with the Kingdom?” Where had the professor said he was from, when they first met? Dimitri had a bad feeling it was the Empire.

“My loyalties lie with my friends. Including you.”

“I’m not your friend anymore. I told you, he’s dead.”

“He’s hurting, but he’s still here.” The professor raised his hand to Dimitri’s face and Dimitri turned in a sudden rage, slapping his hand away.

“Get away from me! You don’t know anything about me!”

The professor stepped back. “I know you’re still alive, whatever you say. And as long as that’s the case, I’ll be here for you.”

“Then  _ where were you _ ?” Dimitri found himself shouting, voice raw, though he’d intended otherwise. “The only one who tried to help me when I truly needed it was Dedue! And he died for it!”

“I’m sorry.” Were those tears in the professor’s eyes? Well, he’d get no sympathy from Dimitri. “I should have been there.”

Dimitri turned back to the window, his fury dying down to embers. “Then you’d be dead too.”

Silence fell for a long moment. When Dimitri glanced over, he saw Byleth picking up his torn linens and putting them back on the bed.

Eventually: “Did Dedue sacrifice himself so you could be miserable?”

“He sacrificed himself so I could avenge the Tragedy at Duscur. Avenge our families.”

“He wanted you to live, not rush to your death.”

_ Then he should stop looking at me with those eyes.  _ “Don’t worry. I have no intention of dying before she does.”

The bed made -- as well as it could be, after the damage Dimitri had done -- the professor returned to Dimitri’s side, looking him in the eye. He didn’t flinch from the sight of Dimitri’s ravaged eye socket. “Those you’ve lost wouldn’t want you to suffer for their sake.”

“Did they tell you so?” Dimitri hated hearing a broken thread of hope in his voice, like a child asking for comfort. As if it were a sincere question. A weak, sniveling part of him wanted the professor to say yes, to take his cares away and tell him everything was all right. Like his father might have.  _ But I don’t want him to lie to me. _

He didn’t. “If you’re seeing things, Manuela might be able to help.”

“She can’t help me. No one can.”  _ If she sends them away, they’ll be lost forever. Never avenged, never satisfied.  _ Wandering in eternal torment was Dimitri’s fate, not theirs. If he could only pay for their peace … 

“Let us try.” The professor reached out, cautiously, and put a hand on Dimitri’s arm. “Please.”

Dimitri felt suddenly exhausted. “Try in the morning, if you must. For now, let me sleep.”

Byleth squeezed Dimitri’s arm before releasing him. “Thank you.”

Dimitri pushed past him on his way to the bed. “Don’t thank me. I’m not doing you any favors. If you get close to me, I’ll drag you down too.”

“At least then you won’t be alone.”


End file.
